During a static engine fire test in China earlier today, the Tianlong-3 Y1 first stage suffered a catastrophic failure after breaking free from its anchoring, launching into the air and crashing back to earth in a massive fireball. No word yet on any casualties.
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Clearly a copy of falcon with the legs and grid fins.
Do SpaceX patient their design so it shouldn't be copied?
You do know that's how most rockets looks like right?
Most rockets do not have grid fins or landing legs. Particularly not V-shaped landing legs. 9 engines is also an unusual amount - unheard of, in fact, prior to Falcon 9.
The fact that it's engine thrust, diameter, height, and total mass are all within 10% of Falcon 9's is also... interesting, to say the least. And it uses the same fuel mix and engine cycle, of course.
The fact that it's engine thrust, diameter, height, and total mass are all within 10% of Falcon 9's is also... interesting, to say the least. And it uses the same fuel mix and engine cycle, of course.
And how's that a problem?10% matters a lot especially in space.
Most rockets do not have grid fins or landing legs. Particularly not V-shaped landing legs. 9 engines is also an unusual amount - unheard of, in fact, prior to Falcon 9.
Do we need to invent a six blade helicopter just for the sake of unique?
And how's that a problem?10% matters a lot especially in space.
Not really. The projected performance is very similar. And plenty of other rockets in the same performance class aren't even remotely comparable to Falcon 9 design and dimension wise (E.G Delta IV M, Ariane 5).
Point being, you don't need similar dimensions to get similar performance - so why then are they so similar?
Also, just so we're clear, when I say "within 10%", I mean the diameter is about 3% off, the height is about 2% off, the thrust is about 6% off, and mass is about 7%.
Basically, the actual dimensions are almost identical, but it's a little heavier and correspondingly has a little more thrust.
One or two stats being close might be a coincidence, but all of them being so close, along with the many other similarities seems very unlikely.
Do we need to invent a six blade helicopter just for the sake of unique?
No, but there are lots of ways to skin a cat.
Many of Falcon 9's design features come from various limitations SpaceX had to work around in their early days, rather than those features being optimal - there's no reason to copy those features if you don't have the same limitations.
Which is why we see other western companies who are copying the basic concept of Falcon 9 while also incorporating many improvements in the actual implementation - see, for example, New Glenn, Nova, or Neutron.
As one example, Falcon 9 is abnormally tall and thin by rocket standards (which is at odds with your earlier comment of "most rockets look like this"). This is suboptimal since high fineness ratios are susceptible to wind shear, and flexing/bending. There's a reason Starship is so much fatter.
This was done because SpaceX needed Falcon 9 to be easily road-transportable in the US, since the rockets are built in California, tested in Texas, then launched in Florida.
However, Tianlong 3 is slightly too wide to be road-transportable in China - which begs the question, why deal with the disadvantages of being so thin if you don't get the corresponding benefit?
grid fins were around long before SpaceX was even conceptualized
China have demonstrated time and again that patents do not stop them from copying things.
SpaceX reportedly don't patent anything because the patents being publicly accessible would potentially reveal more details about the systems and actually make it easier to copy them.